Patrick O'Neill Award / Le prix Patrick O'Neill

Monique Mojica & Lindsay Lachance, eds. Staging Coyote's Dream Volume III. Playwrights Canada Press, 2024.

Staging Coyote's Dream Vol. III represents both scholarly and artistic excellence in contemporary Canadian theatre practice, dramaturgies, and relational collaborations. Co-editors Mojica and Lachance have paired visionary essayists with essential works. The anthology demonstrates both decolonial Indigenous theatre, and larger articulations of emancipatory world-making emerging from Indigenous ways of knowing. The book itself is an activation and enactment of decolonial dramaturgy and scholarship that centers Indigenous artists, teachers, and learners. This important archive documents Indigenous artists’ living practice of performance and theatrical ontology, rooted in cultural and ancestral heritage, imagination, and resistance to colonial dramaturgies. With its depth of scholarship and commitment to decolonial theatre practice and dramaturgy, this book will have a long-term impact on theatre creation and its critical reception. This third volume in the series firmly establishes Indigenous theatre practitioners and theorists in the vanguard of international practice, providing an essential record of works and performance lineage for the global stage.

Staging Coyote's Dream Vol. III représente l'excellence tant académique qu'artistique dans la pratique théâtrale, les dramaturgies et les collaborations relationnelles contemporaines au Canada. Les coéditeurs Mojica et Lachance ont associé des essayistes visionnaires à des œuvres essentielles. L'anthologie illustre à la fois le théâtre autochtone décolonial et des articulations plus larges de la création d'un monde émancipateur émergeant des modes de connaissance autochtones. L'ouvrage lui-même est une activation et une mise en pratique de la dramaturgie et des études décoloniales qui mettent au centre les artistes, les enseignants et les apprenants autochtones. Ces archives importantes documentent la pratique vivante de la performance et l'ontologie théâtrale des artistes autochtones, ancrées dans l'héritage culturel et ancestral, l'imagination et la résistance aux dramaturgies coloniales. Grâce à la profondeur de ses recherches et à son engagement envers la pratique théâtrale et la dramaturgie décoloniales, cet ouvrage aura un impact à long terme sur la création théâtrale et sa réception critique. Ce troisième volume de la série place fermement les praticiens et théoriciens du théâtre autochtone à l'avant-garde de la pratique internationale, fournissant un registre essentiel des œuvres et de la lignée performative pour la scène mondiale.

Honourable Mention:

Obsidian Theatre. 21 Black Futures: The Anthology. Playwrights Canada Press, 2023.

Scripting the future and futurity of Blackness and Black Lives was a massive project undertaken during the pandemic by visionary artistic director of Obsidian Theatre Company, Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu through 21 Black Futures: The Anthology. This anthology demonstrates powerful

modes of social, political, and pedagogical interventions. By surfacing collective desires and recentering Black voices, these plays refuse systemic racism and the ongoing colonial projects. This work is an essential addition to the archive of theatre performance in Canada, expanding upon conventional theatre performance and production models through Black theatre theorization and theatrical practice. The anthology imagines and creates possible futures for our academic, artistic, and broader Canadian communities. The 2025 Patrick O’Neill awards 21 Black Futures: The Anthology as Hon. Mention for its groundbreaking rendition of Black futurity through theatrical innovation while recognizing its impact and influence for future generations of theatre makers and scholars in Canada and beyond.

Scénariser l'avenir et la futurité de la communauté noire et de ses vies est un projet d'envergure entrepris pendant la pandémie par Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu, directrice artistique visionnaire de l'Obsidian Theatre Company, à travers 21 Black Futures: The Anthology. Cette anthologie met en lumière de puissants modes d'intervention sociale, politique et pédagogique. En faisant émerger les désirs collectifs et en recentrant les voix noires, ces pièces refusent le racisme systémique et les projets coloniaux en cours. Cette œuvre constitue un ajout essentiel aux archives de la performance théâtrale au Canada, élargissant les modèles conventionnels de performance et de production théâtrales par la théorisation et la pratique théâtrales noires. L'anthologie imagine et crée des futures possibles pour nos communautés universitaires, artistiques et canadiennes en général. Le prix Patrick O'Neill 2025 décerne à 21 Black Futures: The Anthology une mention honorable pour son interprétation révolutionnaire de la futurité de la communauté noire par l'innovation théâtrale, tout en reconnaissant son impact et son influence sur les futures générations de créateurs et de chercheurs de théâtre au Canada et ailleurs.

Past Winners

2024 (co-winners)

Anthony Vickery, Glen Nichols, and Allana Lindgren, eds. Canadian Performance Documents and Debates. University of Alberta Press, 2022.

Hervé Guay, Jean-Marc Larrue and Nicole Nolette, eds. Théâtre et nouveau matérialismes. University of Montreal Press, 2023.

2023 (co-winners)

Julie Salverson, ed. When Words Sing: Seven Canadian Libretti. PCP, 2021.
Jessica Watkin, ed. Interdependent Magic: Disability Performance in Canada. PCP 2022.

2022 

BOOK : Laine Halpern Zisman, Women and Popular Culture in Canada, Canadian Scholars, 2020
Honourable Mention: Yana Meerzon, David Dean et Daniel McNeil, Migration and Stereotypes in Performance and Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

JOURNAL : Canadian Theatre Review 182 (Spring 2020): Extractivism and Performance. Edited by Kimberly Richards and Heather Davis-Fisch.
Honourable Mention: Performance Matters Vol. 7 No. 1-2 (2021): Performing (in) Place: Moving on/with the Land. Edited by Jenn Cole and Melissa Poll.

2021 - Boca del Lupo, an anthology of Plays2Perform@Home

Honourable Mention: Lighting the Way: an anthology of short plays about the climate crisis, by Chantal Bilodeau and Thomas Peterson

2020 - Peter Dickinson, C.E. Gatchalian, Kathleen Oliver, and Dalbir Singh. Q2Q: Queer Canadian Theatre and Performance. Playwrights Canada Press, June 2018.

Runner-up: Natalie Alvarez, Claudette Lauzon, and Keren Zaiontz, eds. Sustainable Tools for Precarious Times: Performance Actions in the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

2019 - Indian Act, ed. Donna-Michelle St. Bernard (Playwrights Canada Press, 2018).

Honourable Mentions:
Past Lives: Performing Canada’s Histories, ed. Heather Davis-Fisch (Playwrights Canada Press, 2017)
Queer / Play, ed. Moynan King (Playwrights Canada Press, 2017).

2018 - Performance Studies in Canada, ed. Laura Levin and Marlis Schweitzer (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2017)

Honourable Mention: Performing Indigeneity, ed. Ric Knowles and Yvette Nolan (Playwrights Canada Press, 2016)

2017 - Stephen Orlov and Samah Sabawi, eds. Double Exposure: Plays of the Jewish and Palestinian Diasporas. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2016.

Honourable Mention: Dalbir Singh, ed. Performing Back: Post-Colonial Canadian Plays. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2016.

2016 - Jan Selman and Jane Heather. Theatre, Teens, Sex Ed: Are We There Yet. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2015.

Honourable Mention: David Dean, Yana Meerzon et Kathryn Prince (eds.), History, Memory, and Performance. Basingstoke : Palgrave MacMillan, 2015.

2015 - Natalie Alvarez, ed. Fronteras Vivientes: Eight Latino/a Canadian Plays. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2013.

2014 - Natalie Alvarez, ed. Latina/o: Canadian Theatre and Performance. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2013.

Honourable Mentions:
Roberta Barker and Kim Solga, eds. New Canadian Realisms: New Essays on Canadian Theatre. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2012.
Judith Rudakoff, ed. TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work. Intellect, 2012.

2013 - Roberta Barker and Kim Solga, eds. New Canadian Realisms: Eight Plays. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2012.

Honourable Mentions:
Kamal Al-Solaylee, ed. Tonight at the Tarragon: A Critic's Anthology. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2011.
Dennis Johnson, ed. Grassroots: Original Plays from Ontario Community Theatres. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2011.

2012 - Nina Lee Aquino and Ric Knowles, eds. Asian Canadian Theatre. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2011.

2011 - Louise Forsyth, ed. Anthology of Quebec Women’s Plays in English Translation. Vol III (1997-2009). Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2010.

Honourable Mentions:
André Bourassa, ed. La Trilogie inachevée. Montreal: L’instant scene, 2010.
Cynthia Zimmerman, ed. Reading Carol Bolt.. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2010.